The oldest rocks in the group are in the north west of Scotland and Ireland and are 2,700 million years old. During the Silurian period the north-western regions collided with the south-east, which had been part of a separate continental landmass. The topography of the islands is modest in scale by global standards. Ben Nevis rises to an elevation of only 1,344 metres (4,409 ft) and Lough Neagh, which is notably larger than other lakes on the isles, covers only 381 square kilometres (147 sq mi). The climate is temperatemarine, with mild winters and warm wet summers. The North Atlantic Drift brings significant moisture and raises temperatures 11 °C (20 °F) above the global average for the latitude. This led to a landscape which was long dominated by temperate rainforest, although human activity has since cleared the vast majority of forest cover. The region was re-inhabited after the last glacial period of Quaternary glaciation, by 12,000 BC in Great Britain and 8000 BC in Ireland. At that time, Great Britain was a peninsula of the European continent from which Ireland had become separated to form an island.

The term British Isles is controversial in Ireland,[7][12] where there are objections to its usage due to the association of the word British with Ireland.[13] The Government of Ireland does not use the term[14] and its embassy in London discourages its use.[15] As a result, Britain and Ireland is becoming a preferred description,[13][16][17] and Atlantic Archipelago is increasingly favoured in academia,[18][19][20][21] although British Isles is still commonly employed.[16] Equally controversial in Ireland are such attempts by Irish Nationalists to disassociate Ireland from the word "British" - many Irish people (particularly, but not restricted to, Irish Unionists) see this as politicising a geographical and cultural region, by attempting to downplay or undermine the emphatic geographic closeness of the archipelago and any common cultural and historical traits shared within it.

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The earliest known references to the islands as a group appeared in the writings of sea-farers from the ancient Greek colony of Massalia.[22][23] The original records have been lost; however, later writings that quoted from the Massaliote Periplus (6th century BC) and Pytheas's On the Ocean (circa 325–320 BC)[24] have survived. In the 1st century BC, Diodorus used the Latin form, Πρεττανία (Prettania) from Πρεττανική (Prettanike),[23]Strabo used Βρεττανία (Brettania), and Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, used αἱ Πρεττανικαί νῆσοι (the Prettanic Isles) to refer to the islands. Historians today, though not in absolute agreement, largely agree that these Greek and Latin names were probably drawn from native Celtic-language names for the archipelago.[25] Along these lines, the inhabits of the islands of Pretanike were called the Πρεττανοί (Priteni or Pretani).[23][26] The shift from the "P" of Pretannia to the "B" of Britannia by the Romans occurred during the time of Julius Caesar.[27]

The classical writer, Ptolemy, referred to the larger island as Great Britain (Megale Britannia) and to Ireland as Little Britain (Mikra Brettania) in his work, Almagest (147–148 AD). In his later work, Geography (c. 150 AD), he gave these islands the names Albion, Iwernia, and Mona (the Isle of Man), suggesting these may have been native names of the individual islands not known to him at the time of writing Almagest.[28] The name Albion appears to have fallen out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Great Britain, after which Britain became the more common-place name for the island called Great Britain. Great Britain would return to use a millennium later, in the Middle Ages. At that time, it was used to distinguish the island of Britain from the peninsula of Brittany, in northern-western France that had been settled by Britons, which was confusingly similar to the medieval writers. Great Britain and Britain later became synonymous with the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom.

The earliest known use of the phrase Brytish Iles in the English language is dated 1577 in a work by John Dee.[29] Today, this name is seen by some as carrying imperialist overtones[16] although it is still commonly used. Other names used to describe the islands aside from British Isles, include the Anglo-Celtic Isles,[30][31]British-Irish Isles,[32]Britain and Ireland, UK and Ireland, and British Isles and Ireland.[33] Owing to political and national associations with the word British, the Government of Ireland does not use the term British Isles[14] and its embassy in London discourages its use.[34] In documents drawn up jointly between the British and Irish governments, the archipelago is referred to simply as "these islands".[35]

Some publishers' style guides, such as the Economic History Society's and the Guardian newspaper's, suggest that use of the term British Isles should be avoided[36] and, in early 2008, it was reported that National Geographic said it would use the wording British and Irish Isles instead.[37] In 2006, Folens, an Irish publisher of school text books, decided to stop using the term in Ireland[38][39] and in 2001 the rugby union team the British Isles (or British Lions) was renamed the British and Irish Lions.

The British Isles lie at the juncture of several regions with past episodes of tectonic mountain building. These orogenic belts form a complex geology which records a huge and varied span of earth history.[40] Of particular note was the Caledonian Orogeny during the Ordovician Period, c. 488–444 Ma and early Silurian period, when the cratonBaltica collided with the terraneAvalonia to form the mountains and hills in northern Britain and Ireland. Baltica formed roughly the north western half of Ireland and Scotland. Further collisions caused the Variscan orogeny in the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, forming the hills of Munster, south-west England, and south Wales. Over the last 500 million years the land which forms the islands has drifted northwest from around 30°S, crossing the equator around 370 million years ago to reach its present northern latitude.[41]

The islands have been shaped by numerous glaciations during the Quaternary Period, the most recent being the Devensian. As this ended, the central Irish Sea was de-glaciated and the English Channel flooded, with sea levels rising to current levels some 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, leaving the British Isles in their current form. Whether or not there was a land bridge between Great Britain and Ireland at this time is somewhat disputed, though there was certainly a single ice sheet covering the entire sea.

The islands' geology is highly complex, though there are large numbers of limestone and chalk rocks that formed in the Permian and Triassic periods. The west coasts of Ireland and northern Great Britain that directly face the Atlantic Ocean are generally characterised by long peninsulas, and headlands and bays; the internal and eastern coasts are "smoother".

There are about 136 permanently inhabited islands in the group, the largest two being Great Britain and Ireland. Great Britain is to the east and covers 216,777 km2 (83,698 square miles), over half of the total landmass of the group. Ireland is to the west and covers 84,406 km2 (32,589 square miles). The largest of the other islands are to be found in the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland to the north, Anglesey and the Isle of Man between Great Britain and Ireland, and the Channel Islands near the coast of France.

The islands are at relatively low altitudes, with central Ireland and southern Great Britain particularly low lying: the lowest point in the islands is Holme, Cambridgeshire at −2.75 m (−9.02 ft).[42] The Scottish Highlands in the northern part of Great Britain are mountainous, with Ben Nevis being the highest point on the islands at 1,343 m (4,406 ft).[43] Other mountainous areas include Wales and parts of Ireland, however only seven peaks in these areas reach above 1,000 m (3,281 ft). Lakes on the islands are generally not large, although Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland is an exception, covering 381 square kilometres (147 sq mi). The largest freshwater body in Great Britain is Loch Lomond at 71.1 square kilometres (27 sq mi). There are a number of major rivers within the British Isles. The river Severn at 354 km (220 mi) is the longest in Great Britain and the Shannon at 386 km (240 mi) is the longest in Ireland.
The isles have a temperatemarine climate. The North Atlantic Drift ("Gulf Stream") which flows from the Gulf of Mexico brings with it significant moisture and raises temperatures 11 °C (20 °F) above the global average for the islands' latitudes.[44] Winters are cool and wet, with summers mild and also wet. Most Atlantic depressions pass to the north of the islands, combined with the general westerly circulation and interactions with the landmass, this imposes an east-west variation in climate.[45]

The islands enjoy a mild climate and varied soils, giving rise to a diverse pattern of vegetation. Animal and plant life in the archipelago is similar to that of the northwestern European continent. However, there are few numbers of species with Ireland having even less. All native flora and fauna in Ireland, for example, is made up of species that migrated from the elsewhere in Europe, and Great Britain in particular. However, the only window during which this could occur was between the end of the last Ice Age (about 12,000 years ago) and when the land bridge connecting the two islands was flooded by sea (about 8,000 years ago).

Originally forests covered all parts of the islands but today only account for about 9% of the land area of Great Britain and 5% of Ireland. These forests were cleared extensively over the past millennium to make way for crop and pasture land. Most forest land in Ireland are maintained by state forestation programmes. Almost all land outside of urban areas is farmland. However, relatively large areas of forest remain in east and north Scotland and in southeast England. Oak, elm, ash and beech are amongst the most common trees in England. In Scotland, pine and birch are most common. Natural forests in Ireland are mainly oak, ash, wych elm, birch and pine. Beech and lime, though not native to Ireland, are also common there. Farmland hosts a variety of semi-natural vegetation of grasses and flowering plants. Woods, hedgerows, mountain slopes and marshes host heather, wild grasses, gorse and bracken.

The population of England rose rapidly during the 19th and 20th centuries whereas the populations of Scotland and Wales have shown little increase during the 20th century, with the population of Scotland remaining unchanged since 1951. Ireland for most of its history comprised a population proportionate to its land area (about one third of the total population). However, since the Great Irish Famine, the population of Ireland has fallen to less than one tenth of the population of the British Isles. The famine, which caused a century-long population decline, drastically reduced the Irish population and permanently altered the demographic make-up of the British Isles. On a global scale, this disaster led to the creation of an Irish diaspora that numbers fifteen times the current population of the island.

There are two sovereign states in the isles: Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Ireland, sometimes called the Republic of Ireland, governs five sixths of the island of Ireland, with the remainder of the island forming Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, usually shortened to simply the United Kingdom, which governs the remainder of the archipelago with the exception of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The Isle of Man and the two states of the Channel Islands, the Jersey and the Guernsey, are known as the Crown Dependencies. They exercise constitutional rights of self-government and judicial independence;[52] responsibility for international representation rests largely upon the UK (in consultation with the respective governments); and responsibility for defence is reserved by the UK. The United Kingdom is made up of four constituent parts: England, Scotland and Wales, forming Great Britain, and Northern Ireland in the north-east of the island of Ireland. Of these, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have "devolved" governments meaning that they have their own parliaments/assemblies and are self-governing with respect to certain areas set down by law. For judicial purposes, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales (the latter being one entity) form separate legal jurisdiction, with there being no single law for the UK as a whole.

All of the states in the isles are parliamentary democracies with their own separate parliaments. All parts of the United Kingdom return members to parliament in London. In addition to this, voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland return members to a parliament in Edinburgh and to assemblies in Cardiff and Belfast respectively. Governance in the norm is by majority rule, however, Northern Ireland uses a system of power sharing whereby unionists and nationalists share executive posts proportionately and where the assent of both groups are required for the Northern Ireland Assembly to make certain decisions. (In the context of Northern Ireland, unionists are those who want Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom and nationalists are those who want Northern Ireland join with the rest of Ireland.) The British monarch is the head of state for all parts of the isles except for the Republic of Ireland, where the head of state is the President of Ireland.

Ireland and the United Kingdom are part of the European Union (EU). The Crown Dependencies are not a part of the European Union but have certain limited privileges and obligations that were negotiated as a part of the UK's accession to the EU.[52][53][54] Neither the United Kingdom or Ireland area part of the Schengen area, that allow passport-free travel between EU members states. However, since the partition of Ireland, an informal free-travel area had existed across the region. In 1997, this area required formal recognition during the course of negotiations for the Amsterdam Treaty of the European Union and is now known as the Common Travel Area.

Reciprocal arrangements allow British and Irish citizens to full voting rights in the two states. Exceptions to this are presidential elections and constitutional referendums in the Republic of Ireland, for which there is no comparable franchise in the other states. In the United Kingdom, these pre-date European Union law, and in both jurisdictions go further than that required by European Union law. Other EU nationals may only vote in local and European Parliament elections while resident in either the UK or Ireland. In 2008, a UK Ministry of Justice report investigating how to strengthen the British sense of citizenship proposed to end this arrangement arguing that, "the right to vote is one of the hallmarks of the political status of citizens; it is not a means of expressing closeness between countries."[55]

The British-Irish Council does not have executive powers but meets biannually to discuss issues of mutual importance. Similarly, the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body has no legislative powers but investigates and collects witness evidence from the public on matters of mutual concern to its members. Reports on its findings are presented to the Governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom. During the February 2008 meeting of the British-Irish Council, it was agreed to set up a standing secretariat that would serve as a permanent 'civil service' for the Council.[56] Leading on from developments in the British-Irish Council, the chair of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary, Niall Blaney, has suggested that the body should shadow the British-Irish Council's work.[57]

Many civil bodies are organised throughout the islands as a whole. For example the Samaritans, which is deliberately organised without regard to national boundaries on the basis that a service which is not political or religious should not recognise sectarian or political divisions. The RNLI, the life boats service, is also organised throughout the islands as a whole, covering both the United Kingdom and Ireland.[58]

At the end of the last ice age, what are now the British Isles were joined to the European mainland as a mass of land extending north west from the modern-day northern coastline of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Ice covered almost all of what is now Ireland and Great Britain with the exception of most of modern-day Munster and much of what we now call England. Between 14,000 to 10,000 years ago, as the ice melted, sea levels rose separating Ireland from the mainland, creating also the Isle of Man. About two to four millennia later, Great Britain became separated from the mainland. Britain probably became repopulated with people before the ice age ended and certainly before it became separated from the mainland. It is likely that Ireland became settled by sea after it had already become an island.

At the time of the Roman Empire, about two thousand years ago, various tribes were inhabiting the islands. The Romans expanded their civilisation to control southern Great Britain but were impeded in advancing any further, building Hadrian's Wall to mark the northern frontier of their empire in 122 AD. At that time, Ireland was populated by a people known as Scots, the northern part of Great Britain by a people known as Picts and the southern half by Britons. Anglo-Saxons arrived as Roman power waned in the 5th century AD. Initially, their arrival seems to have been at the invitation of the Britons as mercenaries to repulse incursions by the Scots and Picts. In time, Anglo-Saxon demands on the British became so great that they came to culturally dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain, though recent genetic evidence suggests Britons still formed the bulk of the population. This dominance creating what is now England and leaving culturally British enclaves only in the north of what is now England, in Cornwall and what is now known as Wales. Ireland had been unaffected by the Romans except, significantly, having been Christianised, traditionally by the Romano-Brition, Saint Patrick. As Europe, including Britain descended turmoil following in the collapse of Roman civilisation, an era known as the Dark Ages, Ireland entering a golden age and responded with missions, first to Great Britain and then to the continent, founding monasteries and universities and were later joined by Anglo-Saxon missions of the same nature.

By the Late Middle Ages, Great Britain was separated into the Kingdoms of England and Scotland. Power in Ireland fluxed between Gaelic kingdoms, Hiberno-Norman lords and the English-dominated Lordship of Ireland. A similar situation existed in the Principality of Wales, which was slowly being annexed into the Kingdom of England by a series of laws. During the course of the 15th century, the Crown of England would assert a claim to the Crown of France, thereby also releasing the King of England as from being vassal of the King of France. In 1534, King Henry VIII, at first having been a strong defender of Roman Catholicism in the face of the Reformation, separated from the Roman Church after failing to secure a divorce from the Pope. His response was to place the King of England as "the only Supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England", thereby removing the authority of the Pope from the affairs of the English Church. Ireland, which had been held by the King of England as Lord of Ireland, but which strictly speaking had been a feudal possession of the Pope since the Norman invasion invasion was declared a separate kingdom in personal union with England.

Scotland, meanwhile had remained an independent Kingdom. In 1603, that changed when the King of Scotland inherited the Crown of England, and consequently the Crown of Ireland also. The subsequent 17th century was one of political upheaval, religious division and war. English colonialism in Ireland of the 16th century was extended by large-scale Scottish and English colonies in Ulster. Religious division heightened and the King in England came into conflict with parliament. A prime issue was, inter alia, over his policy of tolerance towards Catholicism. The resulting English Civil War or War of the Three Kingdoms led to a revolutionary republic in England. Ireland, largely Catholic was mainly loyal to the king. Following defeat to the parliaments army, large scale land distributions from loyalist Irish nobility to English commoners in the service of the parliamentary army created the beginnings a new Ascendancy class which over the next hundred years would obliterated the English (Hiberno-Norman) and Gaelic Irish nobility in Ireland. The new class was Protestant and British the common people were, largely Catholic and Irish. This theme would influence Irish politics for centuries to come. When the monarchy was restored in England, the king found it politically impossible to restore all the lands of former land-owners in Ireland. The "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 repeated similar themes: a Catholic king pushing for religious tolerance in opposition to a Protestant parliament in England. The king's army was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne and at the militarily crucial Battle of Aughrim in Ireland. Resistance held out, and a guarantee of religious tolerance was a cornerstone of the Treaty of Limerick. However, in the evolving political climate, the terms of Limerick were superseded, a new monarchy was installed, and the new Irish parliament was packed with the new elite which legislated increasing intolerant Penal Laws, which discommoded both Dissenters and Catholics.

The Kingdoms of England and Scotland were unified in 1707 creating the Kingdom of Great Britain. Following an attempted republican revolution in Ireland in 1798, the Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain were unified in 1801, creating the United Kingdom. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands remaining outside of the United Kingdom but with their ultimate good governance being the responsibility of the British Crown (effectively the British government). Although, the colonies of North American that would become the United States of America were lost by the start of the 19th century, the British Empire expanded rapidly elsewhere. A century later it would cover one thirds of the globe. Poverty in Ireland remained desperate however and industrialisation in England led to terrible condition for the working class. Mass migrations following the Irish Famine and Highland Clearances resulted in the distribution of the islands' population and culture throughout the world and a rapid de-population of Ireland in the second-half of the 19th century. Most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom after the Irish War of Independence and the subsequent Anglo-Irish Treaty (1919–1922), with six counties that form Northern Ireland remaining as an autonomous region of the UK.

The United Kingdom and Ireland have separate media, although British television, newspapers and magazines are widely available in Ireland,[59] giving people in Ireland a high level of familiarity with cultural matters in Great Britain. A few cultural events are organised for the island group as a whole. For example, the Costa Book Awards are awarded to authors resident in the UK or Ireland. The Man Booker Prize is awarded to authors from the Commonwealth of Nations and Ireland. The Mercury Music Prize is handed out every year to the best album from a British or Irish musician or group.

Many globally popular sports had modern rules codified in the British Isles, including golf, association football, cricket, rugby, snooker and darts, as well as many minor sports such as croquet, bowls, pitch and putt, water polo and handball. A number of sports are popular throughout the British Isles, the most prominent of which is association football. While this is organised separately in different national associations, leagues and national teams, even within the UK, it is a common passion in all parts of the islands. Rugby union is also widely enjoyed across the islands. The British and Irish Lions is a team made up of players from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales that undertakes tours of the southern hemisphere rugby playing nations every four years. This team was formerly known as the British Isles and the British Lions, but has been called the British and Irish Lions since 2001. Ireland play as a united team, represented by players from both Northern Ireland and the Republic. The four national rugby teams from Great Britain and Ireland play each other each year for the Triple Crown as part of the Six Nations Championship. Also since 2001 the professional club teams of Ireland, Scotland and Wales have competed together in the Magners League.

The Ryder Cup in golf was originally played between a United States team and a team representing Great Britain and Ireland. From 1979 onwards this was expanded to include the whole of Europe.

The idea of building a tunnel under the Irish Sea has been raised since 1895,[62] when it was first investigated. Several potential Irish Sea tunnel projects have been proposed, most recently the Tusker Tunnel between the ports of Rosslare and Fishguard proposed by The Institute of Engineers of Ireland in 2004.[63] A rail tunnel was proposed in 1997 on a different route, between Dublin and Holyhead, by British engineering firm Symonds. Either tunnel, at 80 km (50 mi), would be by far the longest in the world, and would cost an estimated €20 billion. A proposal in 2007,[64] estimated the cost of building a bridge from County Antrim in Northern Ireland to Galloway in Scotland at £3.5bn (€5bn).

^The diplomatic and constitutional name of the Irish state is simply Ireland. For disambiguation purposes, Republic of Ireland is often used although technically not the name of the state but, according to the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, the state "may be described" as such.

^Oxford English Dictionary: "British Isles: a geographical term for the islands comprising Great Britain and Ireland with all their offshore islands including the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands."

^Alan, Lew; Colin, Hall; Dallen, Timothy (2008). World Geography of Travel and Tourism: A Regional Approach. Oxford: Elsevier. ISBN9780750679787. "The British Isles comprise more than 6,000 islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe, including the countries of the United Kingdom of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland. The group also includes the United Kingdom crown dependencies of the Isle of Man, and by tradition, the Channel Islands (the Bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey), even though these islands are strictly speaking an archipelago immediately off the coast of Normandy (France) rather than part of the British Isles."

^ abDavies, Alistair; Sinfield, Alan (2000), British Culture of the Postwar: An Introduction to Literature and Society, 1945-1999, Routledge, p. 9, ISBN0415128110, "Some of the Irish dislike the 'British' in 'British Isles', while a minority of the Welsh and Scottish are not keen on 'Great Britain'. … In response to these difficulties, 'Britain and Ireland' is becoming preferred official usage if not in the vernacular, although there is a growing trend amongst some critics to refer to Britain and Ireland as 'the archipelago'."

^ ab"Written Answers - Official Terms", Dáil Éireann - Volume 606 - 28 September 2005. In his response, the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs stated that "The British Isles is not an officially recognised term in any legal or inter-governmental sense. It is without any official status. The Government, including the Department of Foreign Affairs, does not use this term. Our officials in the Embassy of Ireland, London, continue to monitor the media in Britain for any abuse of the official terms as set out in the Constitution of Ireland and in legislation. These include the name of the State, the President, Taoiseach and others."

^ abcHazlett, Ian (2003). The Reformation in Britain and Ireland: an introduction. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 17. ISBN9780567082800. "At the outset, it should be stated that while the expression 'The British Isles' is evidently still commonly employed, its intermittent use throughout this work is only in the geographic sense, in so far as that is acceptable. Since the early twentieth century, that nomenclature has been regarded by some as increasingly less usable. It has been perceived as cloaking the idea of a 'greater England', or an extended south-eastern English imperium, under a common Crown since 1603 onwards. … Nowadays, however, 'Britain and Ireland' is the more favoured expression, though there are problems with that too. … There is no consensus on the matter, inevitably. It is unlikely that the ultimate in non-partisanship that has recently appeared the (East) 'Atlantic Archipelago' will have any appeal beyond captious scholars."

^"Guardian Style Guide", Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/b, "A geographical term taken to mean Great Britain, Ireland and some or all of the adjacent islands such as Orkney, Shetland and the Isle of Man. The phrase is best avoided, given its (understandable) unpopularity in the Irish Republic. The plate in the National Geographic Atlas of the World once titled British Isles now reads Britain and Ireland."

^Norquay, Glenda; Smyth, Gerry (2002), Across the margins: cultural identity and change in the Atlantic archipelago, Manchester University Press, p. 4, ISBN0719057493, "The term we favour here – Atlantic Archipelago – may prove to be of no greater use in the long run, but at this stage it does at least have the merit of questioning the ideology underpinning more established nomenclature."

^Schwyzer, Philip; Mealor, Simon (2004), Archipelagic identities: literature and identity in the Atlantic Archipelago, Ashgate Publishing, p. 10, ISBN0754635848, "In some ways 'Atlantic Archipelago' is intended to do the work of including without excluding, and while it seems to have taken root in terms of academic conferences and publishing, I don't see it catching on in popular discourse or official political circles, at least not in a hurry."

^Kumar, Krishan (2003), The Making of English National Identity, Cambridge University Press, p. 6, ISBN0521777364, "Some scholars, seeking to avoid the political and ethnic connotations of 'the British Isles', have proposed the 'Atlantic Archipelago' or even 'the East Atlantic Archipelago' (see, e.g. Pocock 1975a: 606; 1995: 292n; Tompson, 1986) Not surprisingly this does not seem to have caught on with the general public, though it has found increasing favour with scholars promoting the new 'British History'."

^Armitage, David; Braddick, Michael (2002), The British Atlantic world, 1500-1800, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 284, ISBN0333963407, "British and Irish historians increasingly use 'Atlantic archipelago' as a less metro-centric term for what is popularly known as the British Isles."

^John Dee, 1577. 1577 J. Arte Navigation, p. 65 "The syncere Intent, and faythfull Aduise, of Georgius Gemistus Pletho, was, I could..frame and shape very much of Gemistus those his two Greek Orations..for our Brytish Iles, and in better and more allowable manner." From the OED, s.v. "British Isles"

^D. A. Coleman (1982), Demography of immigrants and minority groups in the United Kingdom: proceedings of the eighteenth annual symposium of the Eugenics Society, London 1981, Volume 1981, Academic Press, p. 213, ISBN0121797805, "The geographical term British Isles is not generally acceptable in Ireland, the term these islands being widely used instead. I prefer the Anglo-Celtic Isles, or the North-West European Archipelago."

^Irish historical studies: Joint Journal of the Irish Historical Society and the Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies, Hodges, Figgis & Co., 1990, p. 98, "There is mug to be said for considering the archipelago as a whole, for a history of the British or Anglo-Celtic isles or 'these islands'."

British Isles, the (geography) A geographical (not political or CONSTITUTIONAL) term for ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, WALES, and IRELAND (including the REPUBLIC OF IRELAND), together with all offshore islands. A more accurate (and politically acceptable) term today is the British-Irish Isles.

^World and its Peoples: Ireland and United Kingdom, London: Marshall Cavendish, 2010, p. 8, "The nomenclature of Great Britain and Ireland and the status of the different parts of the archipelago are often confused by people in other parts of the world. The name British Isles is commonly used by geographers for the archipelago; in the Republic of Ireland, however, this name is considered to be exclusionary. In the Republic of Ireland, the name British-Irish Isles is occasionally used. However, the term British-Irish Isles is not recognized by international geographers. In all documents jointly drawn up by the British and Irish governments, the archipelago is simply referred to as "these islands." The name British Isles remains the only generally accepted terms for the archipelago off the northwestern coast of mainland Europe."

^Varner, Gary (2008), Charles G. Leland: The Man & the Myth, Morrisville, North Carolina: Lulu Press, p. 41, ISBN978-1-4357-4304-6, "Shelta does in fact exist as a secret language as is used to conceal meaning from outsiders, used primarily in Gypsy business or negotiations or when speaking around the police."

^Hindley, Reg (1990), The Death of the Irish Language: a Qualified Obituary, Oxon: Taylor & Francis, p. 221, ISBN0-414-04339-0, "Three indigenous language have died in the British Isles since around 1780: Cornish (traditionally in 1777), Norn (the Norse language of Shetland: c. 1880), Manx (1974)."

^Hardisty, Jack (1990), The British Seas: an Introduction to the Oceanography and Resources of the North-west European Continental Shelf, London: Routledge, p. 5, ISBN0415035864, "No only are the English Channel and the Southern North Sea, in particular, the busiest shipping clearways in the world, but the seas are also sources of the European community's industrial wealth (fisheries, petroleum, aggregates, and power) ad sinks for the disposal of refuse from its intensely urbanized and industrialized coats."